The Garden of Plants--The Omnibus--The Museum of Natural
History--American Birds--The Naturalist--Study of Entomology--The
Botanic Garden--Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy--The Menagerie--The
Giraffe--Notions of America--The Cedar of Lebanon--Effects of
French Cookery--French Gastronomy--Goose Liver Pie--Mode of
Procuring the Repletion of the Liver.
_Paris, August 14th, 1835._
Here is an Englishman, who has interrupted me at the very outset of this
letter, and says I must dine with him at the “Garden of Plants.” He is a
kind of public informer, and does the honours of Paris to us raw
Yankees, just come over. He has on his left arm, a basket of provisions,
a couple of claret-bottles exhibiting their slender necks over the
margin of the basket, and on his right a lady, his sister, who is to
accompany us. She is exceedingly pretty, with a complexion of drifted
snow, and a rosiness of cheeks. I have no comparison, only strawberries
and cream. She is not slow, neither, as English women generally, to shew
her parts of speech. “Sir, it is as delightful and romantic a little
spot as there is in the whole city. Only two centuries ago it was an
open field, and the physician of Louis XIII. laid it out as a botanical
garden; it now covers eighty-four acres, partly with wood. Wood is so
delightful at this hot season. And there is now a botanic garden,
besides immense conservatories; also, a splendid gallery of anatomy, of
botany, and a menagerie; a library, too, of natural history, and
laboratories, and an amphitheatre, in which there are annually thirteen
courses of lectures. And then there is the School of Drawing and
Painting, of Natural History, all gratuitous. We will just step into an
omnibus on the Boulevards, and for six sous we shall be set down at the
very gate. Oh, it is quite near, only two steps.” I resign myself to the
lady. The excursion will perhaps furnish me, what I have great need of,
a subject for this letter. Parisian civility never allows one place to
be far from another. The French women, if the place should be at any
considerable distance, cannot for their little souls tell you. It is
always “two steps,” and under this temptation of “two steps” you are
often seduced into a walk of several miles. If there is any one virtue
in Paris more developed than another, it is that of shewing strangers
the way. A French lady asked me the way to-day, in the street, and
though I did not know it, I ran all about shewing her, out of gratitude.
The strangers who reside here soon fall, by imitation, into the same
kind of civility. The Garden of Plants is distant from my lodging about
three miles. Adieu till to-morrow.
* * * * *
_August 15th._
The driver of a cab takes his seat at the side of his customer, and is
therefore very civil, amiable, talkative, and a great rogue. The
coachman, on the contrary, is a straight-up, selfish, and sulky brute,
who has no complaisance for any one born of a woman; he is not even a
rogue, for being seated outside, he has no communication with the
passengers. He gives you back your purse if you drop it in his coach; he
is the type of the omnibus-driver. You have your choice of the
“Citadine,” which does not stop for way-passengers, but at its stations
at half a mile; or the omnibus, which picks you up anywhere on the way.
It sets off always at the minute, not waiting for a load; and then you
have a “correspondence;” that is, you have a ticket from the conducteur
at the end of one course, which gives you a passage, without additional
charge, for the next. You go all round the world for six sous. You
change your omnibus three times from the _Barrière du Trone_ to the
_Barrière de l’Etoile_, which are at the east and west extremities of
the city.
In Paris, everybody rides in an omnibus. The Chamber of Peers rides in
an omnibus. I often go out in the one the king used to ride in before he
got up in the world. I rode this morning between a grisette with a
bandbox and a knight with a decoration. Some of the pleasantest evenings
I have spent here were in an omnibus, wedged in between the easy
_embonpoint_ of a healthy pair of Frenchwomen. If you get into
melancholy, an omnibus is the best remedy you can imagine. Whether it is
the queer shaking over the rough pavement I cannot say, but you have
always an irresistible inclination to laugh. It is so laughable to see
your face bobbing into the face of somebody else; it is so interesting,
too, to know what one’s neighbours may be thinking about one; and then
the strange people, and the strange rencontres. I often give six sous
just for the comic effect of an omnibus. Precipitate jolts against a
neighbour one never saw, as the ponderous vehicle rolls over the stones,
gives agitation to the blood and brains, and sets one a thinking. And
not the least part of the amusement is the getting in, especially if all
the places but the back seat are filled. This back seat is always the
last to have a tenant. It is a circular board of about six inches in
diameter at the very farthest end, and to reach it you have to run the
gauntlet between two rows of knees almost in contact; you set out, the
omnibus setting out at the same time, and you get along sitting on a
lady’s lap, now on this side, and now on that, until you arrive at your
destination; and there you are set up on a kind of pivot to be stared at
by seventeen pair of black eyes, ranged along the two sides of the
omnibus.
The only evil I know of these vehicles is, that the seat being occupied
by seven fat gentlemen, it may leave only six inches of space to a lady
of two feet in diameter, so that she comes out compressed to such a
degree as to require a whole day of the enlarging and tightening
capacities of Madame Palmyre to get her back to her shapes; a worse
evil is, that you often take an interest in a fellow-traveller, from
whom you are in a few minutes to be separated, perhaps for ever.
We arrived at the garden just time enough before our repast to expatiate
lightly upon its beauties. We visited first the Museum of Natural
History, which occupies two stories of a building three hundred feet
long. On the first floor are six rooms of geological and mineralogical
collections; on the second, are quadrupeds, birds, insects, and all the
family of the apes--two hundred specimens--and groups of crystals,
porphyry, native gold and silver, rough and cut diamonds. Overlooking
this whole animal creation is a beautiful statue of Venus
Urania--_hominum divumque voluptas!_ In one apartment is a group of six
thousand birds, in all their gay and glittering plumage; and there are
busts about the room, in bronze, of Linnæus, Fourcroy, Petit, Winslow,
Tournefort, and Daubenton.
Our American birds here have all got to be members of the Academy. You
can know them only by their feathers. There would be no objection to
call our noisy and stupid whip-poor-will, “caprimulgus vociferus,” but
what do you think of calling our plain and simple Carolina wren,
“troglodytus ludovicianus!”
The insects have a room also to themselves, very snug and beautiful, in
cases, and sparkling like gems in all their variety of vivid and
fantastic colours. We met here a naturalist, an acquaintance, who has
lived the chief part of his life among spiders’ legs, and he explained
to us the properties of the insects. He conversed upon their tenacity of
life. He shewed us a mite that had lived three months glazed to a bit of
glass, and a beetle which had been above three years without eating, and
seemed not particular how long it lived; a spider, also, which had been
kept one year on the same abstemious regimen, and yet was going on
living as usual. Are you not ashamed, you miserable mortals, to be
_outlived_ by a beetle? He shewed us, also, flies and spiders sepulchred
in amber, perhaps since the days of Ninus--how much better preserved
than the mummied ladies and gentlemen who have been handed down to us
from the same antiquity.
This professor has been so long in the world of insects that he has
taken a distaste to big things. I baited him with a whale and an
elephant, but he would not bite. I knew once a botanist in America who
had turned entirely into a flower, and I accompanied an entomologist of
this kind to the brow of one of those cliffs which frown over the floods
of the Susquehanna, where one could not read Milton, and there he turned
up rotten logs for grubs and snails for his museum. It seems that even
the study of nature, when confined to its minute particles, does not
tend to enlarge or elevate the mind. I have observed that the practice
even of hunting little birds, or fishing for minnows, gives little
thoughts and appetites; so, to harpoon whales, chase deer, bears,
wolves, and panthers, gives a disdain of what is trifling, and raises
the mind to vast and perilous enterprises. The study of entomology, I
mean the exclusive study, leaves, I presume, to the artist, about as big
a soul as the beetle,
“or the wood-louse,
That folds itself in itself for a house.”
There is a building apart also for the “Botanic Garden.” It has an
herbal of twenty-five thousand species of plants. You will see here a
very pretty collection of the mushrooms in wax--it is delightful to see
the whole family together. The Cabinet of “Comparative Anatomy” has
also separate lodgings. It contains skeletons of all animals compared
with man and with one another, about twelve thousand preparations. It is
a population of anatomies; it looks like Nature’s laboratory, or like
the beginnings of creation, about the second or third day. Here are all
the races which claim kindred with us, Tartar, Chinese, New Zealander,
Negro, Hottentot, and several of our Indian tribes. Here is a lady
wrapped in perpetual virginity and handed down to us from Sesostris, and
the mummy of somebody’s majesty, that, divested of its wrappings, weighs
eight pounds, that used to “walk about in Thebes’ streets three thousand
years ago.”
We descanted much upon this wonderful school of nature--upon the
varieties, analogies, and differences of the animal creation. “How
strange that the Chinese should wear their cues on the top in that way!”
said the lady. “How differently from us Europeans!” said the gentleman.
“Only look at this dear little fish!” “Sister, don’t you think it is
time to dine?”--And so we left the anatomical preparations for this more
grateful preparation, the dinner. The great genius of this place, the
Baron Cuvier, is defunct. He has now a place, for aught I know, among
his own collections. Alas, the skeleton of a Baron! how
undistinguishable in a Cabinet of Comparative Anatomy!
In roaming about, we examined superficially the garden, the largest part
of which is occupied by the menagerie,--this is not the reason it is
called the “Garden of Plants.” There are seventeen different inclosures,
and in each a committee of the several races of animals; in one are the
huge and pacific, as the elephants and bisons; in another, the domestic,
as goats, sheep, and deer. The camels are turning a machine to supply
water--they who were born to dispense with this element. In one you will
see the wild and ferocious beasts and their dens, as bears, tigers,
hyenas, and wolves; and there is another containing the vultures,
eagles, &c. The monkies are a beautiful family, about two hundred in
number--their expression such as becomes sisters. The remainder of the
garden also is divided into various apartments; one is a botanic garden,
with six thousand five hundred species of plants; another is a
collection of different soils and manures; another contains a specimen
of every kind of hedge, fence, or ditch; another every culinary
vegetable used for the food of man; and another is a piece of water
appropriated to aquatic plants.
The whole establishment contains five hundred and twenty-six thousand
species of plants, minerals, and animals. In the hot-houses and
conservatories are ten thousand different species of vegetables. In the
midst of the birds you see the eagle; of the quadrupeds, his shaggy
majesty, the king of the beasts; and I observed that sober cacique, the
llama, reclining amongst his native trees. The most extraordinary of
these animals (though nothing is extraordinary in Paris for a long time)
is the giraffe. On her arrival, the professors and high dignitaries of
the state went out to meet her at many days’ journey from the capital,
and deputations from all the departments. She was attended by grooms and
footmen, and “gentlemen of the bed-chamber,” from her native country;
and an African cow supplied her with African milk. An antelope and three
goats followed in an open barouche. She was formally invited to visit
the Archbishop at his country seat near Lyons, but refused; whereupon
his eminence, yielding to her claims of respect, went out to meet her,
and was upset, his coach taking fright at the strange animal; _et voilà
son aristocratie par terre_!
A military escort also proceeded from Paris, with members of the
Institute and other learned bodies, which met her at Fontainebleau; and
her entrance to the garden was a triumphal procession. The curiosity of
the public had now risen to its height, (and there is no place where it
can rise higher than in Paris.) From ten to twenty thousand persons
poured into this garden daily. Fresh portraits by eminent artists, and
bulletins of everything she did remarkable, were published weekly. All
the bonnets, and shoes, and gloves, and gowns--every species of
apparel--was made “_à la giraffe_;” quadrilles were danced “_à la
giraffe_;” _café-au-lait_ was made “_à la giraffe_.” She has large black
eyes, and pretty eye-lashes, and the mouth is very expressive. In
philosophy, she is a Pythagorean, and eats maize and barley, and is very
fond of roses; in religion, she is a Saint Simonian. She takes an airing
every morning in the park in fine weather, and wears flannel next her
skin in winter.
Our guide now mounted up, we following, by a spiral walk, to the summit
of a hill, where there is a fine panoramic view of the city. In the
centre of the spire is a little open kiosk, where we found seats, and a
girl entertained us with choice sights through a telescope, at two sous
a look. At length, after several little searches for a convenient place,
we sat ourselves down underneath a hospitable tree, which, from its
solemn and venerable aspect, and from my biblical recollections alone, I
knew to be the cedar of Lebanon. Here our dinner was spread upon the
earth. At the bottom of the hill is a dairy, which supplied milk, honey,
eggs, fruit, and coffee, with the services of the dairy-maid; and, like
our great ancestor, being seated amidst creation, we partook with
grateful hearts our excellent repast, the enjoyment being enhanced by
occasional conversation.
“How I should like to pay a visit to your country!”
“It would give us great pleasure, madam, if you would come over.”
“And I also. The truth is, I have a hearty contempt for these d--d
monkey French people! I can’t tell why I ever came amongst them.”
“How long have you been here, sir?”
“Twenty years. But what terrible accounts are coming over about your
riots!--why, you hang people up there, I see, without a trial!”
“No; we try them after they are hung!”
“Oh dear! I should never be able to sleep quiet in my bed!”
“The fact is, a republic won’t do.”
“Oh dear no; why cousin writes us from New York that he is coming back;
and he says if things go on so, Europeans will leave off emigrating;
that will be bad, won’t it? (Do let me help you to a little tongue.) But
perhaps things will go better; America’s so young yet, isn’t she? And
then your temperance societies are doing a deal of good; I read about
them this morning. I am very particular about temperance; (you have
nothing in your glass!) and then what Fanny Kemble says about the
bugs--”
“Yes, and the fleas and mosquitoes too! Why it seems to me you can’t
have need of any other kind of _flea_-bottomy.”
“Oh fie, brother!--I declare I like the Americans very much; they are so
good natured. Only look at that dear little hen! Have you any muffled
hens in your country--any bantams?” Thus a whole hour rolled by unheeded
in this delightful interchange of sentiment; and the universe was
created in vain for any notice we took of it till the end of the dinner.
I now turned up my eyes upon the hospitable branches which had afforded
us protection during this repast.
The verdure of this tree is perpetual, and its branches, which are
fashioned like the goose-quill, are spread out horizontally to cover an
immense space. It pushes them from the trunk gradually upwards, and
their outward extremity is bent gently towards the earth, so that the
shelter is complete, the rain running down the trunk or from the tip of
these branches. You would easily know it was intended as a shelter. From
its connexion with sacred history, its venerable appearance, and
extraordinary qualities, it is the most remarkable tree that grows upon
the earth, and there is scarce any relic of the Holy Land more sacred.
It is sung by Isaiah and Solomon: “Justus florebit sicut cedrus Libani.”
“The glory of Lebanon, the beauty of Carmel, and the abundance of
Sharon.”
It does not suffer the presence of any other tree, nor does the smallest
blade of grass presume to vegetate in its presence. It served to build
the splendid temples of David and Solomon; also Diana’s Temple at
Ephesus, Apollo’s at Utica; and the rich citizens of Babylon employed it
in the construction of their private dwellings. Its wood is the least
corruptible substance of the vegetable world. In the temple at Utica, it
has been found pure and sound after two thousand years. Its saw-dust
was one of the ingredients used to embalm the dead in Egypt, and an oil
was extracted from it for the preservation of books. Its gum, too, is a
specific for several diseases. Since this cedar lives in cold climates,
and in unholy as well as holy lands, why does not some one induce it to
come and live amongst us? This was brought to the garden by Jussieu in
1734.
It is a pity such gardens as these are not the growth of republics. What
an ornament to a city! At the same time, what a sublime and pathetic
lesson of religious and virtuous sentiment! What more can all the
records, and commentaries, and polemics of theology teach us than this?
My next visit here shall be alone. Alone, I could have fancied myself a
patriarch, reclining under this tree. These camels on their tread-mill I
could have turned into caravans, rich with spices of Arabia. I could
have seen Laban’s flock in these buffaloes of the Missouri, and Rachel
herself in the dairy-maid. If you take a woman with you, you must
neglect the whole three kingdoms for her, and she will awake you in your
most agreeable dreams; whilst you are admiring the order and beauty
which reigns throughout creation, she will stick you down to a muffled
hen, or a johnny-jump-up; and while you are seated at the side of Jacob,
or of some winged angel, she will make you admire the “goldfinches, the
chaffinches, the bullfinches, and the greenfinches.”
* * * We will now adjourn from the “King’s Garden” to my apartments in
the Rue St. Anne, where I must leave you, you know how reluctantly, till
to-morrow. I am invited out by Mr. P----, one of the bravest men of the
world, from the Mississippi, who is just going home, and in the grief of
separation has called his friends around him at the _Hotel des Princes_,
to dine. I must trust to the events of a new day to fill this remaining
sheet.
* * * * *
_Rue St. Anne, August 15th._
I have not the courage to describe our gorgeous banquet; I have an
excessive head-ache. Though I eat of nothing but the soup, and the fish,
and game, and of the roasts, and ragouts, and side dishes, and then the
dessert,--drank scarcely anything but burgundy, medoc, and champagne,
and some coffee, and liqueur, yet I feel quite ill this morning. If one
should die of the stomach-ache by eating a gooseberry pie, I wonder if
it is suicide? However, if you want to eat the best dinners in the
world, I recommend you to the _Hotel des Princes_, and the acquaintance
of Mr. P. of the Mississippi.
It is very much to be feared that in cookery, especially the
transcendant branches, we shall long remain inferior to these refined
French people. We have no class of persons who devote their whole minds
to the art, and there is nothing to bring talents out into exercise and
improvement. If any one does by force of nature get “out of the frying
pan,” who is there to appreciate his skill? He lives, like Bacon, in
advance of his age, and even runs the risk of dying of hunger in the
midst of his own dishes. Besides, in America, in cooking, as all things
else, we weaken our genius by expansion. The chief cook in this “Hotel
of the Princes” has spent a long life upon a single dish, and by this
speciality, has not only ripened his talent unto perfection but has
brought a general reputation to the house--as you have seen persons, by
practising a single virtue, get up a name for all the rest. The English,
too, are mere dabblers in this science. A French artist, to prepare and
improve his palate, takes physic every morning; whereas an Englishman
never sees the necessity of taking medicine unless he is sick, (“_que
lorsqu’il est malade!_”) his palate becomes indurated (“_aussi
insensible que le conscience d’un vieux juge_.”) In this country, if a
dish miss, or is underdone, do you believe that the cook survives it?
No! he despises the ignominious boon of life without reputation--he
dies! The death of Vatel is certainly one of the most pathetic, as well
as most heroic events, recorded in history. No epicure can read it
without tears.--“_Votre bonté_,” he said to the Prince, who sought to
console him, “_Votre bonté m’achève!--je sais ... je sais que le rôti a
manqué à deux tables!_” He then retired to his room--I cannot go on. I
refer you to Madame de Sevigné, who has given a full account of the
man’s tragical end.
I do not, however, approve of French gastronomy in everything. The
cruelty exercised upon the goose is most barbarous. They recollect that
a goose once brought ruin upon their ancestors in the Capitol, and they
have no humanity for geese ever since. They formerly nailed the wretch
by the feet to a plank, then crammed it, and deprived it of water, and
exposed it to a hot fire (_où elle passait une vie assez malheureuse_)
until the liver became nearly as large as the goose, which, being
larded with truffles, and covered with a broad paste, bore the name of
the inventor with distinction through the whole earth.
A “_Paté de foie gras_” used to be a monopoly of diplomatic dinners, and
it is known that a great national congress always assembled at
Aix-la-Chapelle on account of the number of geese resident in that city;
but they have now spread everywhere, from the Palais Royal to the very
cabins of the Alleghany. I saw the whole village of Pottsville having an
indigestion of one that was brought in there last year. Pray do not
touch them unless with the veritable brand upon the crust; some make
them of gum elastic. When genuine, they are wholesome, they are
intelligential. I am glad to see that humanity, in the general march of
civilization, has interfered in behalf of the goose. It is now enclosed
immoveably in a box, where it is crammed with maize and poppy oil, and
other succulent food, and its eyes put out, so that it may give the
whole of its powers to digestion--as that old Greek philosopher, who put
out his eyes to give the whole mind to reflection--and a dropsical
repletion of the liver being produced by the atony of the absorbents,
the liver (the only part of a goose that is now of any account in
Europe) is ready for the market. I received this information over a
slice of goose-liver pie yesterday, from our host, and I was anxious to
write it down, while yet fresh in memory. A single idea, you see, may be
inflated, by nearly the same process as one of these livers, and made to
cover a whole page. I have room only to say, I am entirely yours.